Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara Become First Olympic Pairs Champions from Japan

(16 February 2026)  World Champions Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara, became the first Olympic Pair Skating champions in a dramatic finish to the pairs event in Milan.  After digging a hole in the short program where they placed fifth, and overcoming a day of self doubt, the team crushed it in the free skate, turning a 4 1/2 point deficit into a  9 1/2 Pont victory.

2026 European Champions Anastasiia Metelkina & Luka Berulava moved up one spot to claim the silver, Georgia’s first ever medal at the Olympic Winter Games, while the leaders in the short program, Minerva Hase & Nikita Volodin of Germany won the bronze. 

Skating last in the third of four warm-up groups, Miura & Kihara gave a dominating  clean performance to their “Gladiator” routine, that received a thunderous response from the audience.  All their elements were well done, and their component scores significantly greater than the rest of the fiel.  The team received a record score for Free Skating with 158.13 points.  Their total score of 231.24 was nearly 30 points above those who had already skated to that point.

Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara

The error in the short program had a devastating impact on Kihara's frame of mind for a full day following the short program.

“Yesterday I was in despair,” Kihara admitted. “I didn’t know how to get up again. Even in practice today I couldn’t stop crying but our coaches, team members, my friends in Japan, our supporters in Canada, everybody around me was sending messages of support. Riku said it’s not over yet, that’s why I bounced back.”

“Ryuichi didn’t stop crying since the morning and I told him ‘I’m going to skate for you today’ and he said ‘we’re going to skate for each other’,” Miura said. “We made a huge mistake yesterday but in the past seven years, we worked so hard. We both said we’re going to forget what happened and we were determined to start from scratch. We have so many experiences over the past seven years and we’ve grown a lot. That is the reason why we managed to win today.”

After their skate, on the awards stand those turs of espair ha tune into tears of joy.

Skating to “Keeping Me Alive”, Metelkina & Berulava turned in excellent performance, with only one significant error on throw triple loop and also having a mediocre back outside death spiral. They scored 146.29 points for the Free Skating and help second place with 221.75 points.  They earned the first Olympic meal for Georgia in any sport.

Anastasiia Metelkina & Luka Berulava

“It is a huge honor for us and I am incredibly happy that our names are the first written as the ones that won the first medal for Georgia at the Winter Olympic Games,” Berulava said. “It was a long path towards this.”

“We had fulfilled our mission,” Berulava noted. “We did everything, we skated four programs [including the Team Event] and now we finally can relax a little bit.”

Short porgram leaders Hase & Volodin, from Germany skated last, with still the potential to earn the Gold.  Their program to “Memory House” had many strong elements, but they made serious errors on both side-by-side jump elements.  Those two errors were costly in technical element score, and also drove down their component points. They placed fourth in the Free Skating with 139.08 points and dropped to third with 219.09 points.

Minerva Hase & Nikita Volodin

“We are just relieved that it was enough for the bronze medal,” Hase commented. “It does not matter which color the medal has, we are just proud to take home a medal at our first Olympic Games after skating together for three years.

“Obviously, we are not 100 per cent satisfied with our performance but I am proud that we were able to get back into the program after the mistake on the Salchow and that we did not lose the program but fought until the end for each single point. And this helped us to get on to the podium,” she added.

Maria Pavlova & Alexei Sviatchenko, the first Hungarian Pair Skaters to compete at the Olympic Winter Games in 70 years, were third in the Free Skating and remained in fourth with a personal best of 215.26 points.

“It was our best performance so far this season, it was perfect, we couldn't have done anything better today and yesterday,” Pavlova shared. “We're very proud of what we did because we were nervous of course. It's the Olympics but we worked so hard this season and we knew we can go out there and we can do the best we can, we can show the perfect programs and I think we did it.”

The 2022 Olympic Champions Wenjing Sui & Cong Han, from China, turned in a beautiful performance to “A Tapestry of a Legendary Land,” but both side-by-side jump elements were flawed.  They finished fifth with 208.64 points.

“It’s a very memorable experience to stand on the Olympic ice in Milano,” Han said. “We are satisfied because we have already been Olympic Champions before, and this time we only had a very short period to prepare. I think just being able to stand here and be satisfied with our performance is already a win.”

Following the event the team announce their second retirement.

Canadians Lia Pereira & Trennt Michaud dropped from third to eighth with a flawed program with three major errors, finishing with 199.66 points.  Their free skate results was 9 points below their score in the Team competition free skate.

“There were obviously a couple of things that didn’t go the way that we’d planned but we felt really good in practice, going into warm up and even at the beginning of the program,” said Michaud. “Skating in the last group of the Olympics for the first time is pretty cool. Lots to take out of it and we’re super proud of both of us for it.”

Deanna Stellato-Dudek & Maxime Deschamps placed ninth in the free skate and moved up to 11th overall, with 12.61 points.  The team, 2024 World champions, was a shadow of their former selves in this competition.

“I joke with Maxime that he literally and figuratively always carries me through when I’m having a hard time and he did not disappoint tonight,” Stellato-Dudek said.  “I look forward to having that Olympic experience now that the ‘work’ is done and to take the photo with Maxime in front of the rings.”

Italians Sara Conti & Niccolo Macii (ITA) moved up from eighth to sixth with 203.19 points.  They had major errors in both throws, and one side-by-side jump element.

Emily Chan & Spencer Akira Howe placed best among the two American teams.  They finished seventh with 200.31 points.  It was a fairly strong performance of their "Ghost" routine, but Chan fell on triple toe loop, and the landing of throw triple loop was flawed.

Ellie Kam & Danny O'Shea finished 9th with 194.58.  They struggled through the first third of the program, but ended strong with their signature dramatic lifts.